Household by Florence Stevenson Page B

her cat. Surely, she thought resentfully, Grimalkin must have been the most ill-dispositioned animal in the world. However, with her quick faculty for understanding both sides of any given question, Juliet could imagine the poor creature wouldn’t enjoy being rooted out of whatever airy kennel it occupied merely to notify the O’Neills or those related to them of impending doom.
    She frowned, wondering why she, only half an O’Neill and alone out of all the Veringer siblings, could see the cat in all its grey-striped glory, with the halo of fire around its head and its huge eyes green as the grass that grows on Ireland’s sward. She did not remember where she had heard the latter description, but guessed it had been confided to her by Molly in one of her quieter moments when she wasn’t wailing out one of her forecasts of doom.
    Juliet had seen Molly, too. Thin as a bone she was, with the pale freckled skin common to the redhead she swore she had been in her younger years. Now her hair was white as the snowdrops that bloom near the lakes of Kilarney. That Juliet recalled, was another of Molly’s descriptions, told to her when she was a wee thing and the banshee had come to pass the time of day with her before she set up a howl on the castle ramparts. Molly also had green eyes, and she could make them shine like a beacon in the night but hadn’t a notion of where she’d learned the trick of that. And why, Juliet wondered, were they disturbing her sleep tonight? Probably they were also disturbing her mother and Colin, as well. Though they couldn’t see them, Colin, Tony and Kathleen could hear them. It had been a long time since the pair had set up such a chorus, and now there were no more babies to die. Juliet swallowed a large lump in her throat. There were still the four of them and their darling parents, as well.
    She slid out of bed and pulling open the heavy oaken door of her bedroom, she dashed down the dark cold hall toward Colin’s chamber. It was only after she was inside and the door banged behind her that, in the act of leaping on his bed, she feared he might not care for this late invasion.
    He didn’t.
    “You jumped on my arm,” he stated sleepily and crossly.
    “But I didn’t wake you,” she commented knowledgeably. “You heard them, too. Didn’t you?”
    “I have been asleep,” he replied pointedly.
    “You heard, you heard, you heard!” Juliet chanted.
    Out of natural curiosity, her brother capitulated. “Did you see them?”
    “Of course, I didn’t. They’re outside. Poor Molly. It’s cold tonight.”
    “She wouldn’t be feeling the cold. She’s dead,” Colin reminded her.
    Juliet shivered. “It must be dreadful to be dead. I hope it never happens to me.”
    “If it does, you’ll just have to make the best of it like Molly.”
    “Oh, you!” Juliet punched him. “You’d miss me, wouldn’t you?”
    “I don’t expect I should.” He shrugged. “At least, I’d sleep the night through.”
    “You weren’t sleeping tonight. You were listening to Molly and Grimalkin.” A sudden thought struck her, and she shivered again.
    “You’re cold. You’d best get under the covers.”
    “I’m not cold,” Juliet told him, but she also accepted his invitation, snuggling up against him. “I was shivering... out of fright.”
    “You?” he scoffed. “You’re never frightened.”
    “I was, too,” she said indignantly. “The last time Molly screamed like that—and the time before that—was because of the babies dying. You... you don’t think one of us’ll die?”
    “Hush,” Colin soothed. “It could not be for that. They were all little.”
    “Little people aren’t the only ones who die,” Juliet sobbed. “Molly was old and she died... burnt to ashes.”
    “No one’s going to die, silly,” he said with conviction.
    “She’s here for some other reason.”
    “I wonder what,” Juliet murmured sleepily.
    “ You could ask her,” Colin said enviously.
    “I’d